Dear Reader,
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
(1) Futrelle writes that the journal has “the kind of rhetorical excess only believable to those who haven’t ever had to struggle to pay the bills.” I work at a $6.31-an-hour job making copies so my financial situation isn’t as rosy as I would like. I know the value of hard, honest work and how money could be tight, but I resent having the government take so much in taxes out of my paycheck just for outdated, useless programs for other people except me. What about the “rhetorical excess” that your paper seems to be filled with on any given week? Like the quaint little article a few months back where a writer suggested a night in the city where the electricity would be turned off so people could look at the stars [Field & Street, April 7]. Gee, I wonder what would happen on the west side or Logan Square if such an idea became a reality. Would the colorful residents of these parts gaze up in awe or would there be a reenactment of South Central LA after the first trial of the cops? Think about it.
(3) The article goes on about the magazine’s “deeply rooted eccentricity” and how it can’t be disguised. Please tell me it is my imagination, but have there been any cover articles of the Reader dealing with such topics as “environmental racism,” Carol Moseley-Braun, school curriculums, et al without a leftward slant? I guess you’re not an eccentric if your thinking is along the lines between Ted Kennedy and Fidel Castro.
